Though DailyKos is mostly just a circle jerk of earnest, unpaid victims blithely doing their best to work against their own interests masquerading as a liberal populist news and commentary website, sometimes you get something good like this. No, a pathetic Ted Nugent wannabe cockbag spouting off against unions is nothing special, but the well-wrought evocation of a simpler time in the history of live rock music, especially in the comments of the post, is really decent. Great name-check of Jen Trynin, too. That's somethin'. What wasn't mentioned is that for many years, the major labels and huge concert venues have been left behind, as indie labels and indie bands working hard enough to get by are the new goal, not the consolation prize.

From last year. Good stuff, with somewhat surprisingly candid info on one of America's indiest indie bands. Superchunk asks the question 'Why not you?' Or me. Or pretty much everybody. Making music, art, contributing to our culutre, our world even if it is not transcendent genius or anything. Would be better than we got now.

The kid. The kid is probably an annoying little turd in real life. Or he's a brilliant actor. Unlike Johnny Knoxville. Knoxville's probably hella annoying, but he's no actor. Yeah, he was wearing a rubber old man mask, but that doesn't mean he was believable as an 86 year old man. 86. 86 is pretty fucking old, and even the most robust 86 year old men wouldn't talk or more importantly move like Knoxville did in this movie. I don't get the point of this. It wasn't funny. It was probably cheaper and easier than trying to make an actual movie, but that's it.

Fox "News" is all bent about this Justina Pelletier case, but since Fox lies about everything, there's no way to know what is really happening unless you are bright enough to look elsewhere. It sure as shit looks like something fucked up is going on, but it is obvious that this girl's family, especially her father, are nasty, nasty people. Is Justina better off without them?

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Veerrryyyy interesting old-timey newspaper article about the slow-motion trainwreck that was Serotta Bicycles. (Newspapers. Remember those? 1989. Remember those?) As it turns out, Serotta the company would have been much better off as Serotta the man in the garage; what DeRosa and Colnago and Davidson managed to pull off was always going to be impossible for Serotta. Indeed, the mid-level manufacturing was wicked difficult in the bike biz even back in 1989. For the record, Strong Cycles experimented with a bunch of different business models and production scales--almost as many as Serotta over the years--but settled on what has been working real well for quite a while now. Not trying to compete with Cannondale, though. That might be key.

Alicia Witt is winning Justified this season. Every season they find a reason to make the 24/7 Raylan/Boyd show unnecessary, and this year it is Alicia Witt's character--without her Micheal Rapaport's Darryl Crow, Jr. would be a complete joke. As a funny factoid from Witt's Wikipedia page we learn that the ginormously annoying and nausea-inducing Ben Folds has been divorced four times. Heh, indeedy.

No matter how big of a maxi douchenozzle they find to replace him, Congress is guaranteed to get smarter once he leaves. Rogers is one of those addle-headed reactionary dickbrains who definitely fit right in at the FBI (especially the ladies' lacy lingerie part, not that there's anything wrong with that). So, even if Ann Coulter or Joe Bastardi get the seat, it's a tiny bit of an upgrade.

Unhinged teabagging buffoons like Michelle Malkin have proven once again they are too dim to understand almost any concept, but especially humor or satire or irony. If any of these racist cocksuckers were really, really, REALLY SO OFFENDED by the Colbert Show joke, then they certainly would have been the ones leading the protest against Dan Snyder and his football team's wildly offensive name from the start. Right? They would have been WAY more offended by the name than by the Colbert thing, right? Um...

Or have they been flinging every risible idea anyone even remotely associated with the production ever had against the wall in order to fill the running time? Now Helix has been renewed, and I'm wondering if they have any frakking idea what to do now? The whole thing feels like a very low-scale Lost, with inanity piled onto inanity because there was not enough idea to go around. Ronald D. Moore is famous for being a complete idiot and having no idea what to do with a story or even how to manage a production. Maybe there was one decent idea in there, but whichever one it was, the producers didn't have enough power to make it work, so they went for the dog's breakfast of laughable, cheap tee vee. Meegwun Fairbrother is good, though, kinda like the Chief Tyrol of this thing. And Hiroyuki Sanada is always watchable--like Michael Hogan.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Dave Lindorff has been going off on the Bureau for their investigation surrounding the astonishing death of suspect Ibrahim Todashev. Todashev was a suspect in a murder and a potential witness in the Boston Marathon bombing case and unarmed when he was shot to death. Rachel Maddow on the tee vee has been reporting that the FBI is 151 and 0 in justified vs. unjustified shootings. That's a pretty good record, with every death at the hands of the Bureau completely necessary and ay-okay, so the agents on scene weren't too worried about losing their pensions or doing time when they decided to blow away that stupid fucker Todashev. Whatever happened, whatever crimes may have been committed by the shooters, we will never know.

If we're really frakkin' lucky. Imagine a day when our colleges and universities became learning institutions and not excuses for semi-pro sports leagues and rape culture. Well, that day will probably never come, but never get a day closer today. The UChicago example is still a pretty good one.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

The Grateful Dead were just terrible, terrible music, terrible people, an entire multiverse of suck, but a Deadhead hating on the pathetic putrefaction of white American privilege that is the purported musical combo Phish is beyond ludicrous. Yes, yes, yes, Phish suck, but they are basically a better-looking Grateful Dead with prep school educations and health insurance, so, yeah, Dead fans should go fuck themselves and their awful taste as well.

Why would a little mountain bike for a 5'3" person use bigger than 26" wheels? I get that the builder builds what the customer wants, and using 650B wheels is not quite as wrong as using 29" wheels--and I've seen average height and shorter women on 29ers, and it looks stupid and uncomfortable. I guess it can be done, and the RL looks neat, but it is something I will never understand. Tune in next time...

Monday, March 24, 2014

25 years. Holy shit! It might as well have been yesterday, what with all the oil spilled around the world every day. Still, 25 years is a good long time, and we can look back at those 25 years and see if we have made any progress with regards to oil and energy in general.

Silver never claimed to be anything other than what he was, but the internets gifted him with abilities and sensibilities he never possessed. Nate Silver is a sports numbers dweeb first and foremost who found some fame and oodles of cash doing political shit. Nobody should be surprised that Silver is not much more than a publicity whore at this point. If he hires a climate denier or a dude like Pat Robertson who thinks gods talk right to him, why would anyone really care. Sam Wang does the numbers way better anyway.

(Neither is Virginia, but that's another story.) The NCAA did their best to fuck the Shockers in their bracket, and today they were successful. Undefeated don't mean shit unless you win it all, but WS never should have been one of the top four.

Mmmm, formula. What was missing, though, was the eager and playful sense of disbelief that they were actually getting to make a movie. That was the key to Shaun of the Dead, and The World's End has none of it. The fact that it was a completely tired retread of SotD was not nearly the biggest problem. The charm has been exhausted, and if not for Paddy Considine and Eddie Marsan to carry the project, I can imagine that it would never have been successfully completed. In certain light, Rosamund Pike is absolutely lovely; some illegal/immoral hybrid clone of Pike and Rose Byrne fifteen years ago might be the most beautiful woman in the world. Doesn't help this flick, though. For the love of Christ, I hope this is the last of these.

A Nagasawa road frame would be wicked killer, and it is too bad that Mr. Nagasawa is not building anymore. Or building full-time anymore. Or exporting frames to the US anymore. Whatevs. Don't really know. I ain't gettin' one irregardless (sic, dude).

The Jets and their hilarity are not all Sanchez's fault--not even close. But still, it's pretty great that an NFL team IN NEW YORK CITY can't somehow figure out how to be merely average. Sanchez fit right in with the enormous, almost unbelievable, suckitude that were and are your New York Jets.

Besides multisyllabic words and an IQ over 6? Let's see. What could it be? And besides not being quite as big a worthless cocksucker as Bush or Cheney? I just can't possibly think why Mona Charen would be oh so afraid of Barack Obama as POTUS. A real feckin' mystery...

Really? Little Ezra has been a slimy turd from the beginning, and nothing has changed, so why the long faces? Klein has had his eyes on the upper-echelon Village Idiot fiefdom all along. Never once was he any more considered or talented than any other random asshole, but once given the blessing of the rock-ribbed conservative establishment media, at all levels, Klein was focused enough to enthusiastically ingratiate himself with his masters. He's the retarded little brother of David Broder, and he always has been. To all the asswhipes just now noticing that, I say Welcome to the party, pal.

Nicely done, NYC Pride folks. Nicely done. Donohue's a feckin' ijit, and though he got schooled big-time, he's too stupid to learn the lesson. Being gay and prideful doesn't hurt anyone, and if Donohue and his band of foolish bigots really want to join in and play nice, they would be welcomed. Now, how long will it be until those Catholic League fuckheads get it?

Even a school from Georgia is beloved by all the good christian Americans when they beat Duke in the tournament. Today, Mercer is the most popular college basketball team in the mulitverse. Good job, fellas.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

This movie was not as astoundingly awful as I thought it would be, but only because the bar was a little too low. Douglas and DeNiro didn't even try; DeNiro is the king of phoning it in once the check clears, and Douglas looks like a disturbing, rejected alien concept from the 1960s Star Trek show. Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline, on the other hand, did some decent work here with the weakest of material, and Mary Steenburgen sure looked happy to have the gig. Last Vegas is even yet still another flick murdered by the hella-stupid PG-13 rating. Since these guys weren't in a tween movie or superhero story, the PG-13 forced the material into the worst sort of immature presentation. Last Vegas looked and felt like an overlong pilot for a sitcom.

In Russia, Ukraine... Of course, Exxon has a foreign policy, and of course it conducts said policy against U.S. interests when it sees fit. The real problem isn't Exxon acting against American interests. That's not a big deal. The real problem is that Exxon almost always acts against the interests of the entire human species.

I should thank the gods below that I am not around to regularly watch daytime tee vee cable "news"--especially days like today, nobody should be watching cuz basketball. Anyways, I caught a couple of seconds of the strange-looking Ronan Farrow on a big Korean HD flat screen, and HOLY SHIT, HE'S ONE CREEPY BASTARD! I think Woody should just trade Satchel outright to the Sinatra family for cash or a draft pick.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

What does 5 billion buy you? The coup in Ukraine will probably be another American-backed/supported shit show which will set back the causes peace, stability, democracy, whatever a couple of generations. The USA spent the money to undermine Russian interests in Ukraine; at first blush the coup looks like a pretty yummy payoff. History begs to differ, but we don't do fuckin' history in America.

Trudeau belongs in jail, or fed to rabid woodchucks, but so do such luminary teabaggers as Sarah Palin, Paul Ryan, and Franklin Graham. Kevin Trudeau's problem was indeed picking the wrong venue. Had he chosen more wisely, he would have been able to peddle his horseshit with impunity AND collect a huge check in perpetuity funded by Koch-sucker wingnut welfare. Poor bastard.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Red 2 makes the second Thor movie seem necessary and vital to the art of cinema. With an inexcusable PG-13 rating, this flick looks fake and flat and cartoony and most importantly bloodless--and very very much like a tee vee movie. John Malkovich may not be as big a disappointment as Kevin Spacey or Robert DeNiro, but he only seems to phone it in in really shitty movies these days. He likes money, but at one time, he looked like he would become an important film actor. Regardless, pretty much anyone with even a smidge of ability was wasted in this thing. If I had paid 12 bucks to see this, I woulda been piiissssssed.

I assume this is Jorn Barger doing this. His Joyce obsession predates the consumer use of the interweb tubes, and in the mid-90s, at the dawn of the internets as we know it, Barger's eclectic intellect blazed a trail of possibility and curiosity beyond the banality of AOL and porn.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

This was one of my least-favorite episodes of Stargate: SG-1; that Thor guy looked weird.

Anyway...T:TDW seemed like a waste of pretty much everybody in it. There was no focus, and pretty much nothing useful for Selvig, Loki, Odin, and those three clown--or anyone else of consequence--to do. Where was the action or the story or sense of grand scale? Nowhere to be seen, that's for sure. Another thing is for sure: any one of these stupid movies would have been better if Jaimie Alexander had been cast as Jane Foster. Or maybe as Black Widow, with Gemma Arterton as Foster. Something. Natalie Portman sucks.

No matter what, this doesn't end well, but the reality that a plane can be lost like this without an explanation is really starting to freak people out. These planes are big, but the fucking ocean is huge, and there's no constant radar coverage out there.

The fun never ends at the Fukushima carnival. Three years seems like a long time if you are a coupla blocks away from the meltdown, but it's not much time at all. The Japanese government has been working overtime to obfuscate, but with luck we'll get some or all of the straight story eventually, and when we do, I'm sure we will find it is a heck of alot scarier than any of the big money fellas have been willing to admit three years into the disaster.

And not at all necessary. The whole exercise felt like an Ann Druyan fundraiser; it's okay if she likes money, I guess, but this remake thing was pretty tawdry. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is earnest enough, but if you wanted to do a pop-science show, actually redoing Cosmos was probably the worst possible choice. There have been a shitload of nature and science shows since Sagan's original--even that keyboard player guy from that awful British synth band had a show about physics and shit that felt very much like an update of Cosmos without having the gall to rip off the title--so we have all seen the good and the bad and everything else, and if some person or group was REALLY interested in setting a new benchmark, well, they wouldn't have had to call it Cosmos. The production looked pretty shitty too; now that we've seen it all before, and tee vee, and movies, and the rest of the computer-generated banality, this new show isn't gonna be anywhere good enough. It's a thing because, but it's not a good thing for any of us not named Druyan or Tyson.

Uh, wait...what? Not a big win. An inexcusably embarrassing loss. That's what it was. Alex Sink was a name-brand candidate, and...Fuck it. The Dems suck and are not now nor have they ever been properly focused on winning every winnable race. Donkey balls: Dems suck.

Sarah Palin. What a maroon. Yet those fools at CPAC ate her shit right up. That's your Republican Party in 2014. Any decent people would have laughed a little and then felt bad for it before getting Palin placed in the group home or other institutional setting where she belongs and would receive the 24-hour care she clearly needs. Instead, Steve Schmidt and John McCain's campaign wanted her to be the VP. Fucking genius.

We need to unleash the genius of American capitalism and free enterprise. If we have regulations which prevent oil and gas frakkers from wasting gas and gas by-products at the production sites and polluting as much as they want, we will be stifling market forces that create solutions to all our problems. If we want nice things, we need to allow multi-national oil and gas companies to fuck up our planet because freedom!

When we pick a side, it is often the worst possible choice, so it is not exactly a stretch to believe that the Ukrainian instability will lead to a dangerous, reactionary petty fascism. Unless we learn the big lesson, butt the fuck out, we will continue to pick losers and set the cause of peace, stability, and democracy back by generations.

Not so long ago, that dumb bitch was chosen as the best person in the Republican Party to run as a VP candidate. Remember that. She's a fucking retard and a skeevy grifter, but there she is today leading the CPAC fools in their brainless chants. If only ESPN had seen fit to hire her incompetent ass to read the sports on the tee vee 20 years, Palin could have spent her days building a glorious career banging basketball players like Glen Rice in dorm rooms and cheap motels, and we wouldn't have to listen to her blithering teabagger inanity in 2014. Holy shit, we are doomed as a species.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Anyway, I was shocked by just how awful this flick was--and the bar was pretty darned low. Riddick is Vin Diesel's self-described signature film role, yet Diesel played this film like he was being blackmailed into it. The movie looked a ton like those tee vee Dune movies, with a cheap, sepia-toned greenscreen flatness everywhere you looked. The story was pretty much all the bits cut from Pitch Black. And this thing was supposed to be a return to form or some such nonsense. Riddick blew chunks.

I had the misfortune to spend some time in a room today with a tee vee on in the corner while Ronan Farrow was on. I'm glad I couldn't hear it too well, because that fucker is so unaccountably awful. Like a Luke Russert or a Chelsea Clinton, if that little turd's name was Ed Jonston instead, he'd be at best gainfully employed as an assistant manger in training at one of America's finest dollar stores. Instead, Satchel got his life handed to him by his psycho family and our vile web-toed aristocracy, and now we all have to suffer because of it.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

At one time, The Ukraine was number three on list of biggest nuclear-armed countries. They made a decent decision that they didn't want the hassle, and now they don't have nukes. But they were once number three. And Russia was number two.

You are number six.

Who is number one?

You are number six.

Russia is still number two, but Ukraine is no longer on that hit parade. Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons either. Afghanistan, nope. North Korea, yep. Iran? Let's hope so any day now. But Ukraine is a big no. No nukes, a shitload of Russian troops in Crimea and the Russian Black Sea Fleet, all under treaty.

In an alternate universe, was this Ukraine/Crimea thing the start of WWIII when some right-wing, Western-backed fundamentalist Christian lunatics toppled the elected government in Ukraine and nuked Russia? Tune in next time for another exciting episode of Bullshit, or Not?

So anyway, you sorry fucking bastards, this is your Democratic Party at work in the US Senate. Let's explain it again how much difference there is between the parties, so much that it is an existential crisis for the republic.

If you're a fucking moron. Or a rock-ribbed establishment asswhipe. Or a Democratic Senator.

Regime change--or as we call it the violent and illegal attack on a lawful government of a soveriegn nation--in Venezuela doesn't even rate a one on the "No Shit" scale. The United States sees Venezuela, along with the rest of Central and South America as quaint and unimportant kingdoms AS LONG AS they each and every one follow every edict and every longing of the all-powerful United States. As soon as any American nation fails to smile and politely follow orders, the US makes sure they endure maximum suffering until a more cooperative leadership takes charge (see Cuba). Venezuela has been daring to assert an independent path for many years, and today the United States sees a golden opportunity to Venezuela and the Venezuelan people back into their proper place at the feet of the USA.

Poor ole Miss Lindsey is really losing his shit. I mean, it's kinda funny, but it is also kinda fucking batshit insane. Much like a blithering asswhipe like a Louie Gohmert or a Steve Stockman or a rancid cockbag like a Paul Ryan or a Ted Cruz, Graham is collecting a giant check from you and the rest of your sorry fucking brethren to conduct the business of the United States. And he blames Benghazi for the fighting in Ukraine. AND he says it out loud. Heh, indeedy.

Chris Floyd is on board with a jaundiced view of Western influence in Ukraine's instability, and gets into the fun fisking Pierre Omidyar and his toothless liberal lions of the press. Let's face it, if Omidyar had a REAL interest in effective, adversarial journalism, he would have endowed some sort of independent trust with more than enough money to establish a truly liberal news and reporting organization which was completely free from the influence or interference of anyone, but especially Pierre Omidyar. He didn't of course, because the First Look organization's first mission is to further the vile neo-liberal interests of Pierre Omidyar.

Fox "News" and the rest of the Koch-suckers are having a field day pushing a spate of unreconstructed horseshit in the form of Obamacare horror stories, and while the debunking is hot and heavy, nobody can hear it, more or less. Still, if you hear it on Fox "News" or read in the paper, it is probably an utter fabrication at best.

Friendly reminder. He's elected in the U.S. Congress. Your U.S. Congress. The one you pay for. The one you count on to pass laws which keep the nation functioning. Stockman is one of those guys. In the Congress. And he's fucking crazy. Louie Gohmert crazy. Darrell Issa crazy. Stockman is doing workin' for you. Hey! Good luck with that.

Well, well, well. Douglas Valentine has a bit o' fun with Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill and their sketchy money-man, Pierre Omidyar. Clarity and skepticism in the service of humor is high entertainment.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Catchin' up with Kim Gordon in the UK. Gordon's wicked cool, and if somehow, someway, one of the Sonic Youth people breaks bigger than expected at this unlikely juncture, karma and jesus say it should be Gordon first. Then Renaldo.

This risible wingnut asshole floats around the saddest backwaters of the commentariat, undermining our political culture. What's most delicious is that he's yet another embarrassing buffoon (Bill O'Reilly, anyone?) waving the tawdry Harvard credentials as if they are worth anything at all anymore.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

East Ukraine and West Ukraine? My biggest fear is that Putin doesn't have a plan, and maybe doesn't quite know how he wants this to end up. I'm sure the best outcome for Putin and Russia would be a stable, nominally democratic Ukraine firmly allied with the Russian Federation, with no more shooting, no military action and as little embarrassing coverage as possible. Is that still possible now? Sure...

So, the Crimean region would probably be up for an alliance with Russia, but what about the rest of Ukraine? Partition and such would be an ugly throwback and constant reminder of all the nastiness that went down proceeding it, not at all what the Russians want. An outright, full-on invasion would be a tremendous public relations problem for Putin, as well as an inconvenience for the Ukrainian people.

Fortunately for everyone, there is nothing that the United States can do. Russia holds the cards militarily, the European Union has ginormous economic and energy interests at stake, and unless the US is going to nuke Putin, no ability to impose our will unilaterally. That is about the only truly helpful reality right now.

What's the solution which will prevent violence and allow the Ukrainians, the Russians, and the EU all to claim victory? This is the answer the United States should be pursuing right now, all the while pretending we only want what's best for the (other) interested parties. The teabaggers and the unreconstructed Cold War retards in America--who have been as wrong as wrong can be about every single issue facing the world for at least 70 years--would hate it, but it would be the best American contribution to geopolitics in quite a while.

Teach for America are irredeemable human garbage, right-wing scum. You get the idea. This FDL piece is nicely done; it is do important to keep up the conversation that TFA is not here to help. TFA is designed to destroy public education and undermine the work of truly qualified and committed teachers while at the same time destroying the ability of those teachers to be properly represented and properly compensated. TFA would like you and me and everyone in the tree to believe that TFA is a bunch of privileged, well-meaning white kids spending two years teaching the Negro and the Mexican and the hillbilly because nobody else will before they head off to their proper white, Christian, Republican life. That's bullshit, and the more everyone who knows it says so, the better off public education and every student will be. The TFA assholes are union-busting teabaggers in service of the Koch-suckers and the rest of the worst of America.